Side printed easy opening polyolefin bag



Nov. 9, 1 c. A. cooK ETAL SIDE PRINTED EASY OPENING POLYOLEFIN BAG FiledApril 19. 1963 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG.I

FIG.5

PIC-3.6

INVENTORS CHARLES A.COOK

FLOYD B.WILLIAMS BY mm A My A ORNEY Nov. 9, 1965 C. A. COOK ETAL SIDEPRINTED EASY OPENING POLYOLEFIN BAG Filed April 19, 1963 2 Sheets-Sheet2 PRIN T ER EXTRUDER 20 INVENTORS 33 CHARLES A.COOK

FLOYD B WILLIAMS BY MZWQ .Wi

United States Patent ()fiice 3,215,546 Patented Nov. 9, 1965 3,216,646SIDE PRINTED EASY OPENING POLYOLEFIN BAG Charles A. Cook, Tyler, Tern,and Floyd B. Williams, Penfield, N.Y., assignors to National Distillersand Chemical Corporation, New York, N.Y., a corporation of VirginiaFiled Apr. 19, 1963, Ser. No. 274,119 3 @laims. (Cl. 229-53) Thisinvention relates to a novel bag of a polyolefin material and morespecifically relates to a novel arrangement of a polyolefin bag whereinthere is printing along the manufacturers creases in the edges of thebag and wherein additional creases are provided on the front and rearpanels of the bag to permit easy opening.

In the manufacture of polyeolefin bags, the front and rear panels areoften provided with printing for identification of the contents of thebag or the like. Generally, such printing does not extend to the edgesor manufacturers creases. Thus when the bag is filled and placed in astack of other bags, only the edges are observable and all identifyinginformation on the front and rear panels is hidden from view. Moreover,when the bags are empty and flat, some difiiculty is experienced inopening the bags since the inner surfaces of the front and rear panelstend to stick together.

In accordance with the present invention, a bag is formed in such amanner that printing extends across the manufacturers creases so thatwhen the bag is opened the sides of the bag can contain any desiredprinted information which will be observable when the bag is in a pileor stack. Moreover, additional creases are provided in the front andrear panels of the bag which provide an air passage and thumb-hold forgrasping the bag to open it.

The novel bag of the present invention can be manufactured by the methoddisclosed in our copending application Serial No. 274,120 filed April19, 1963, entitled Method of Making Polyolefin Bags wherein afterextrusion and printing of the bag the tube of polyolefin material isreinflated and rotated and twisted with respect to a pair of nip rollswhich reclose the bag along new crease lines. Therefore, printedinformation which originally was on the front or rear panel of the bagprior to the twisting operation, will now appear on what becomes theedge or side of the bag while the original creases move into the frontand rear panels of the bag, thus providing the novel structure of theinvention.

Accordingly, a primary object of this invention is to provide a novelbag arrangement for polyolefin bags in which printing is observablealong the manufacturers creases.

Another object of this invention is to provide a novel polyolefin bagwhich has creases in the front and rear panels thereof to permit easyopening.

A further object of this invention is to provide a novel bagconstruction which permits identification of the bag contents when thebag is contained in a large pile.

A further object of this invention is to provide a novel arrangement forpolyolefin type bags which permits ease of opening of the bags.

These and other objects will become apparent from the followingdescription when taken in connection with the drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 illustrates a bag printed in accordance with the concepts ofthe present invention.

FIGURE 2 schematically illustrates the unsealed end of the bag of FIGURE1 when the bag is unfilled, to particularly illustrate the formation ofcreases in the front and rear panels of the bag.

FIGURE 3 is a partially diagrammatic and partially perspective view ofthe manner in which the preprinted tube of film is rotated andreinflated and then reclosed prior to the bag forming process.

FIGURE 4 is a side plan view of the twister mechanism of FIGURE 3.

FIGURE 5 is an enlarged detail view which illustrates the manner inwhich the slats of FIGURE 4 may be secured to their side supportmembers.

FIGURE 6 is a transverse sectional view, on an enlarged scale, through aside support member illustrating fastening means for securing a slatthereto.

Referring first to FIGURE 1, there is illustrated therein a novel bagconstruction wherein a bag is comprised of a front panel 10, a rearpanel 11, an edge portion 12, which connects the front and rear panels1t) and 11, and sealed ends 13 and 14. The end 13 is a previously sealedend and the bag prior to being filled as shown in FIGURE 2 was open atfront end 14. The front end 14 of the bag is schematically illustratedin FIGURE 2 with the bag collapsed prior to the filling operation. Itwill be noted that the bag of FIGURE 2 has two manufacturers creases 1Sand I6 (crease 16 is seen in FIGURE 1) and additionally has furthercreases 17 and 18 in panels 10 and 11 respectively. The creases 17 and18 provide means for easily opening the bag of FIGURES l and 2. That isto say, a typical polyolefin bag of the prior art is difiicult to snapopen since the inner surfaces of the front and rear panels tend to sticktogether. In accordance with the invention, however, additional creases17 and 18 run completely along the length of the bag to provide airpassages within the bag and a thumb hold for ease of opening.

As a further feature of this invention, it can be seen in FIGURE 1 thatprinted information (the label 6-N-24) appears directly in the side ofthe bag and straddles crease line 16. Therefore, when bags of the typeof FIGURE 1 are placed in a large stack, this identifying information isreadily observable as contrasted to prior art type bags which containinformation either on front or rear panels which were hidden from View.

The manner by which the bag of FIGURES 1 and 2 can be manufactured isillustrated in FIGURES 3, 4 and 5. FIGURE 3 is a schematic illustrationof the method of manufacture leading to the printing of an extruded tubewhich ultimately is formed into bags. Thus, in FIGURE 3 there isillustrated an extrudcr 21) which may be of any desired type well knownto those skilled in the art, which extrudes a thin walled tube 21 of anyappropriate polyolefin material.

The tube 21 is grasped at its upper end by appropriate nip roll means22, 23 which is also well known to those skilled in the art, whichflattens the tube to an appropriate fiat web which is ultimatelyprocessed in any desired manner and then is applied to a printer P. Theprinted P, which may be of any desired type, then prints some repetitivepattern on the tube moving in the direction of the arrow, where thepattern on the upper side of the web is shown by shading lines while asimilar pattern is printed on the rear panel of the web as shown bydotted lines.

All of the foregoing are steps well known to those skilled in the art,and in the past, the printed web coming from printer P is connected to abag making machine which now cuts the tube into predetermined lengths,one end of which is sealed and the other end of which is open to form abag. In accordance with the invention, however, the web 21 istransmitted to a second pair of nip rolls 22 and 23 and through atwisting structure 24 which will be described more fully hereinafter.

Essentially, the purpose of twisting structure 24 is to cause the web 21to rotate. The web 21 emerging from the end of twister 24 is theninflated between the end of twister 24 and a pair of nip rolls 25 and 26which recollapse the lower tube 21a. It is to be specifically noted,however, that since tube 21a is rotated that when the nip rolls 25 and26 recollapse tube 21a, the original crease lines 30 and 31 of web 21will now lie in the front and rear panels 32 and 33 respectively and newcrease lines 34 and 35 are formed for the tube.

In comparing the flattened tube of FIGURE 3 to the bag of FIGURE 1 it isnow seen that crease line 30 corresponds to crease 17 of FIGURE 2 whilethe other crease line 31 corresponds tocrease line 18 of FIGURE 2 toprovide the desired air passages and thumb holds needed for easy openingof the bag. Moreover, it will be seen that the printed pattern, such aspatterns 40 and 41, which were originally on the front and rear panelsof the tube prior to the passage through twister 24, are now directlyover the crease lines 35 and 34 respectively. Therefore, bags formedfrom the flattened tube leaving nip rolls 25 and 26 will, when filled,have the identifying indicia or printed material of areas 40 and 41 onthe side of the bags. By way of example, area 41 could be printed withthe information 6-N-24 shown in the edge 12 of FIG- URE 1, where thisprinting is done with conventional printing techniques in the front andrear panels of the bag by printer 23, although it ultimately appears onthe edges of the bag after the twisting operation.

It is to be specifically noted that in a typical manufacturing processit is desirable that the nip rolls 22, 23, 25 and 26 be parallel to oneanother. Therefore, a twisting operation is necessary to rotate tube 21ato the position shown in FIGURE 3. Clearly, however, no twistingoperation is necessary if nip rolls 25 and 26 form some angle to theaxis of nip rolls 22 and 23. That is to say, in accordance with theinvention, it is only necessary that the web be reinflated and thenrecollapsed at a new angle with respect to the axis of the bag.

Where the twisting operation is found desirable, the twister 24 can beprovided as illustrated in FIGURES 3, 4 and by means of a plurality ofspaced slats such as a first group of slats 50 which are supported byend supports 51 and 52 and a second similar group of slats such as slats53 which are supported by end supports 54and 55. It will be notedparticularly from FIGURE 4 that supports 51 and 55 are parallel to oneanother and are at an angle to the supports 52 and 54. Moreover,supports 52 and 54 are parallel to one another and are spaced from oneanother by end clamps 60 and 61 to maintain a predetermined spacingbetween the faces of slats 50 and 53. In a similar manner, members 51and 55 are held spaced from one another by end clamps 62 and 63 wherebythe other end of slats 50 through 53 are held spaced from one another.

Accordingly a web twisting area is designed between the opposingsurfaces of slats 50 and 53 to twist the web 21 which rides between thespaced slats in the manner illustrated in FIGURE 3. Slats 50 and 53 aswell as their supports 51 through 55 can be formed of any desirablematerial and can be secured to one another in any desired manner.

By way of example, FIGURE 5 illustrates the manner in which support 52is secured to one end of slat 50. Thus the slat 50 has a counter sunkopening 70 therein which receives the head of a bolt 71. Bolt 71 extendsthrough an opening in slat 5t and a cooperating opening in member 52 andis captured on the other side of member 52 by means of an appropriatewasher 72 and nut 73 which is threaded on to the end of bolt 71. Byappropriately loosening these connections it will be clear that thetwisting structure 24 can be rotated to any desired twisting angle withexternal support structure (not shown) thereafter maintaining thestructure in this twisted position with the individual securing meansbetween the supports and the slat being thereafter tightened.

Although we have described preferred embodiments of this novelinvention, many variations and modifications will now be apparent tothose skilled in the art, and we prefer therefore to be limited not bythe specific disclosure herein but only by the appended claims.

It is claimed:

1. A polyolefin bag having an open mouth and a transversely sealedbottom and also having internal front and rear panels including parallellongitudinal edges defined by side creases, at least one of said panelshaving a second side edge defining crease therein parallel to and spacedat relatively short distance from the adjacent side edge crease andproviding an indicia receiving portion therebetween, identifying indiciacarried upon said indicia receiving portion, said identifying indiciabeing located in overlying relationship with respect to said second sideedge crease, said second side edge crease extending longitudinally ofsaid bag and providing an air channel into the interior thereof, andsecond side edge crease extending from the open mouth of said bag to thesealed bottom thereof and providing a thumb hold at said mouth for easeof opening.

2. A polyolefin bag having an open mouth and a transversely sealedbottom and also having integral front and rear panels including parallellongitudinal edges defined by side creases, the front and rear panels ofsaid bag having a second side edge defining crease therein parallel toand spaced a relatively short distance from the adjacent side edgecrease and providing an indicia receiving portion therebetween, andidentifying indicia carried upon each of said indicia receivingportions, said identifying indicia being located in overlyingrelationship with respect to said second side edge creases in said frontand rear panels, said second side edge creases extending longitudinallyof said bag and providing air channels into the interior thereof.

3. The bag of claim 2 wherein said second side edge creases extend fromthe open mouth to the sealed bottom thereof and provide thumb holds atsaid mouth for ease of opening.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,876,112 3/59Vail 22962.5 X 3,087,670 4/63 Rhodes 229-625 3,113,715 12/63 Pangrac22953 FOREIGN PATENTS 565,769 12/32 Germany.

JOSEPH R. LECLAIR, Primary Examiner.

FRANKLIN T. GARRETT, Examiner.

1. A POLYOLEFIN BAG HAVING AN OPEN MOUTH AND A TRANSVERSELY SEALEDBOTTOM AND ALSO HAVING INTERNAL FRONT AND REAR PANELS INCLUDING PARALLELLONGITUDINAL EDGES DEFINED BY SIDE CREASES, AT LEAST ONE OF SAID PANELSHAVING A SECOND SIDE EDGE DEFINING CREASE THEREIN PARALLEL TO AND SPACEDA RELATIVELY SHORT DISTANCE FROM THE ADJACENT SIDE EDGE CREASE ANDPROVIDING AN INDICIA RECEIVING PORTION THEREBETWEEN, IDENTIFYING INDICIACARRIED UPON SAID INDICIA RECEIVING PORTION, SAID IDENTIFYING INDICIABEING LOCATED IN OVERLYING RELATIONSHIP WITH RESPECT TO SAID SECOND SIDEEDGE CREASE, SAID SECOND SIDE EDGE CREASE EXTENDING LONGITUDINALLY OFSAID BAG AND PROVIDING AN AIR CHANNEL INTO THE INTERIOR THEREOF, ANDSECOND SIDE EDGE CREASE EXTENDING FROM THE OPEN MOUTH OF SAID BAG TO THESEALED BOTTOM THEREOF AND PROVIDING A THUMB HOLD AT SAID MOUTH FOR EASEOF OPEINING.